One Portrait - The Setup

Friday, February 15, 2008
On a regular basis we get called in to do a standard portrait series for senior management (and sometimes the entire staff) and this is how we do it.
Concept/Objective:

The objective is to always produce a well lit, flattering portrait of the subject where the subject is separated from the background and the lighting doesn’t take away from the person being photographed.

John Harrington-WHAT WE USE - Introduction

Thursday, January 24, 2008
One of the things that happens often, is friends and colleagues ask what equipment we use, how we pack it, travel with it, and so forth. Further, with interns coming and going (40+, to date), it was a frequent occurrence that I was training and explaining to them what we use, and how we use it. So, during what was our slow period around the holidays, we ramped up and produced a series of videos. All together, they total 1 hour, 49 minutes, and took a month to produce, from production meetings to finishing editing - much more than I had expected to commit, but none-the-less it was a worthwhile endeavor. I've been collecting video for some time, from shoots and setup images, and so I've combined related video from those to an explanation of each case. I was inspired by Chase Jarvis' similar series, and am pleased with my results.

Below is the introduction, and I have transcribed every segment, and, there are links to every piece of equipment we could find on either Adorama, Amazon, or, B&H, in case you're looking for that tool yourself.

Here is the video introduction to all 32 segments, giving you an overview of the work we do using the equipment. Let me know what you think!

information

The Assignment Construct is a commentary about what went into, what went on behind-the-scenes, or otherwise occured before, during, or after an assignment. Everything from images of the setup, to choices of camera angle, client requests (and fulfillment), and so on.